Whenever CU professor Robert Mazzeo offers 鈥淓xercise Physiology,鈥 an upper-level undergraduate course popular with aspiring doctors, it fills quickly. So does the waiting list. He and a colleague each teach the class once a year to a combined total of about 230 students.
In June, Mazzeo, a member of the integrative physiology faculty and an avid tennis player, introduced an online version of the course called 鈥淭he Science of Exercise鈥 that also has proven popular 鈥 on a vastly greater scale and far beyond 麻豆影院.
By early November, more than 35,000 people worldwide had at least sampled the course, a MOOC, or massive open online course. Nearly 800 were on track to finish it, many for fun and at no cost, others for a certificate of completion and a $49 fee. A new cohort of students enrolls every two weeks. There is no cap on enrollment.
鈥淏ased on the number of new students joining each week, 鈥楽cience of Exercise鈥 is on track to be the most popular course in the history of CU,鈥 said Cory Pavicich (Engl, Hum鈥04) of CU鈥檚 Office of Strategic Initiatives, which helps faculty design MOOCs.
MOOCs emerged about a decade ago. The 2012 debut of delivery platforms with ties to Stanford, Harvard and MIT led to a sustained burst of attention and a New York Times headline dubbing it 鈥淭he Year of the MOOC.鈥 The medium was hailed as a way to offer online learning to mass audiences at minimal or no cost, amid intensifying concerns about the high cost of traditional campus-based higher education.
The hype has died down, but MOOCs have shown they鈥檙e here to stay and that they can coexist with campus-based instruction while drawing huge numbers of additional off-campus learners. Coursera, one of the most prominent MOOC platforms, edX and Udacity now offer thousands of courses, commonly developed by professors at established universities, including CU 麻豆影院.
After a modest start in MOOC development in 2013, when CU introduced its first four courses, including 鈥淚ntroduction to Power Electronics鈥 and 鈥淐omic Books and Graphic Novels,鈥 the university is rapidly growing its slate. As of November, nearly 25 MOOCs developed at CU 麻豆影院 were available on Coursera, the university鈥檚 main platform partner. By 2020, the electrical engineering department alone expects to add at least 50 more.
鈥淢OOCs were once branded the death-knell of the university and then they were proclaimed dead, but, in reality, they remain a fascinating field of play,鈥 said English professor William Kuskin, who as vice provost and associate vice chancellor for strategic initiatives oversees MOOC development. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an arena that uniquely merges teaching and research in ways capable of reaching the entire globe.鈥
The hype has died down, but MOOCs are here to stay.
MOOCs are just one form of online education, and not the only one offered by CU 麻豆影院. The School of Continuing Education offers a variety of paid online courses open to the public, for example, and the campus has eight fully online graduate degree programs, mostly in engineering. But MOOCs are proliferating fastest, largely because production requires only one professor and a small team, and most of the faculty work is up front rather than continuous.
Besides 鈥淪cience of Exercise,鈥 CU 麻豆影院 MOOCs include 鈥淜inematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft,鈥 鈥淕raphic Design,鈥 鈥淏usiness Analytics for Decision Making鈥 and 鈥淭he Dynamics of Group Communication.鈥 Others scheduled for debut are 鈥淪ocial and Emotional Learning and the Teacher,鈥 鈥淩oots and Shoots,鈥 a collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute, and 鈥淎ctive Optical Devices.鈥
鈥淭he mission of a university should be to provide educational opportunities to students and reach as many as possible,鈥 said Juliet Gopinath, the electrical engineering professor who developed the optical devices MOOC. 鈥淭he online forum allows us to reach non-traditional students and provide opportunities to those for whom it might be otherwise impossible. Personally, I also hope that it helps underrepresented groups as well as those in Third-World countries who struggle to find the time and opportunity to receive an education.鈥
As the name MOOC suggests, a MOOC ("massive open") is easy to join. Anyone with an internet connection can participate by visiting a provider website, such as coursera.org, registering, picking a course and clicking the first lesson. Learners can watch instructional videos and consume other course materials (readings, quizzes, projects) for free. To be evaluated and eligible for a certificate of completion, students pay a fee, typically less than $100 on Coursera.
Two years ago, Mazzeo hadn鈥檛 even heard of MOOCs. When he did, from Russell Moore, the university provost, Mazzeo seized on the potential for propagating the core message of his teaching and research 鈥 that 鈥渆xercise is medicine鈥 鈥 at an exponentially greater rate than possible on campus.
All this means the campus and MOOC versions of Mazzeo鈥檚 course complement rather than compete with each other.
Working with a CU team of learning design experts, Mazzeo condensed and simplified the lectures from his semester-long campus course, shot a series of videos and developed new quizzes that could be scored by software or other students in the course. Within months, thousands of people around the world were enrolling in 鈥淪cience of Exercise.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 reaching populations I never thought I鈥檇 reach in my career,鈥 said Mazzeo, who marvels over students鈥 locations, which he surveys on an electronic dashboard on his office computer: Botswana, Qatar, Algeria, Nepal, Iraq, India and scores of others. At least two-thirds of all people enrolled in CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 MOOCs live outside the U.S., according to Pavicich.
All this means the campus and MOOC versions of Mazzeo鈥檚 course complement rather than compete with each other.
鈥淭hese are truly new students for the 麻豆影院,鈥 Pavicich said.
Mazzeo鈥檚 MOOC covers the same basic concepts as his in-the-flesh course, 鈥淓xercise Physiology.鈥 But it鈥檚 not the same course, and isn鈥檛 intended to be.
The MOOC, which consists of four modules that can be completed at the student鈥檚 pace within a 180-day period, is shorter and less technical, for example. It involves fewer and less-detailed tests. And successful completion of the MOOC doesn鈥檛 confer CU academic credit.
Kuskin鈥檚 group believes MOOCs serve the university鈥檚 fundamental mission and key interests in several ways.
They fulfill the broad mandate of providing public education, and they amplify CU鈥檚 renown. At least one CU department has reported that its MOOCs have helped attract full-time, degree-seeking students to campus.
Teaching through new media also prompts professors to reevaluate how and what students ought to learn. This can lead them to modify and improve traditional classroom courses.
And MOOCs are a source of revenue, modestly so far for CU, but with potential for significant growth.
Many universities have raced ahead in online education, among them Arizona State and the University of Florida, which bring in tens of millions of dollars through their programs, including online degree programs. The University of California Berkeley offers an online master鈥檚 program in public health, and Georgia Tech offers online master鈥檚 programs in computer science and analytics. MIT offers a pair of online 鈥淢icroMasters鈥 credentials that can lead to admission to an accelerated on-campus master鈥檚 degree.
In time, CU 麻豆影院 expects to increase its share of paid online certificates and degree programs, according to Pavicich. MOOCs offer a foundation for that effort while immediately serving a greater number and variety of learners than the university ever has, he said 鈥 both newcomers to higher education and people who simply want more of it.
鈥淲e are past the point where you can assume you鈥檙e done learning when you鈥檙e 22 or 23,鈥 Pavicich said. 鈥淵ou should expect to learn throughout your life.鈥
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Illustration by Harry Campbell
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